The Houston Rockets are in a difficult spot.
First, the team hasn’t won a playoff series in a decade now. Even this year’s team, which is not bad, is only the third best team in Texas and probably fifth or sixth in the tough Western Conference. Thus, the Rockets don’t generate much buzz around town. Most folks prefer talking about who the Texans might sign or let go than the Rockets’ season.
So, it was no surprise that the Chronicle’s Jonathan Feigen, the newspaper’s beat writer for the Rockets, summed up the Rockets’ latest loss to the Spurs (which was their 15th in their last 19 games with the Spurs) in the following manner:
Things were so bad, that with 6Ω minutes left in the game, the [Rockets’ team mascot] bear came out on the court with a siren while the teams were still playing.
No time out. No dead ball. He just came out to the middle of the court and went into his act. Fortunately, by then most of the crowd was stuck in traffic after leaving early to beat the traffic.
It should be worth noting that the Rockets played the Spurs on the second game of a back-to-back without Yao Ming, who was still out with a broken bone in his leg, and that, despite the loss of their second best player, this team has beaten the Spurs twice this season and gone 20-12 sans the big fella.
The fact that they happen to be in most lopsided conference nightmare in league history where even the 5th best team in the West is likely only 6th best in the entire NBA with 30+ games minus one of their two superstars and still are in the hunt for home court advantage in a round of the playoffs is pretty remarkable.
Unfortunately, they are the best team in the city and generate almost no interest among casual sports fans.
Jeff, I don’t disagree with anything you say. However, it would appear that, absent rather substantial upgrades at power forward and point guard, the Rockets are relegated to second tier status in the Western Conference behind Dallas, Phoenix and San Antonio. Could it be that the lack of interest is a result of the fans’ realization of the foregoing and that it is unlikely that the Rockets can make the moves necessary to move into the first tier before McGrady’s inevitable decline?
My company has a suite at the Toyota Center and I could go to any game I wanted to. I get offered tickets all the time and turn them down. Plain and simple, I could care less about pro basketball.
I’m not sure if the last straw was the glorification of Kobe once he finally earned his ‘street-cred’ by abusing that poor girl in Colorado, when Marcus Camby, in spite of earning $7mil/year, demanded a clothing allowance if the league wanted to restrict him from dressing like a circus clown while on team business or when Latrelle Spreewell declared ìThey offered me 3 years at $21 million. Thatís not going to cut it. And Iím not going to sit here and continue to give my children food while this front office takes money out of my pocket. If [owner Glen] Taylor wants to see my family fed, he better cough up some money. Otherwise, youíre going to see these kids in one of those Sally Struthers commercials soon.î
While the Rockets have not fallen as far as the Portland Jailblazers, the NBA has an image problem and its starting to manifest itself in places like Houston where apathy is firmly entrenched. Heck, until we get to the last 20 games of the regular season, the players themselves could care less about any of the games they are playing in.
The NBA can implode in the same was the NHL did and few in Houston would care. We have too many high quality alternatives to care about the low quality entertainment option offered by the Rockets.